The bad news is the Native Friendship Centre of Montreal underwent extensive damage due to a car crash during the early morning of Sept. 19. The good news? No one was hurt.
“A van came in our front door,” recounted the Friendship Centre’s Nathalie Lloyd. “He swerved to miss another car that ran a red light, and unfortunately came into our building.”
The Friendship Centre is located on the corner of Ontario and St. Laurent, one of Montreal’s busiest streets. It is open to these types of accidents because there are no barriers stopping vehicles from crashing into its exposed facade.
“The whole front doors are gone,” she said. “The doors were pushed right up onto the metal screen we put up at night. A pole crashed downstairs and smashed a desk and some windows. The youth centre doors are also gone. The whole front entrance needs to be redone.”
The driver wasn’t hurt, and suffered “just a few scratches,” according to Lloyd.
As for the damage, she didn’t know how much it would cost, but was stressed about the Centre’s powwow, scheduled for the end of the week.
The Centre was only closed for a day.
Lloyd said that a similar accident happened when they first moved in a few years ago, but not to the extent of this one.
“We’re just thankful it didn’t happen when we were open.”
